I call her a quack, because that’s what she was. I say “was” because I have recently learned that on September 3, 2009 Hulda Clark died.

In other words, this quack has quacked her last quack and killed her last patient. This quack is no more! She has ceased to be! She’s expired and gone to meet ‘er maker! She’s a stiff! Bereft of life, she rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed her to the perch she’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘er metabolic processes are now ‘istory! She’s off the twig! She’s kicked the bucket. She’s shuffled off ‘er mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! This is an ex-quack!!

I guess “Dr.” Clark didn’t have the “cure for all diseases,” after all.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I even feel slightly guilty about indulging in such a rant, the taboo against speaking ill of the dead being a strong one. No doubt, Hulda Clark’s family and friends are devastated, and I can even feel sympathy for them–even the ones who supported her “research” and “treatments.” Clark may even have been a very nice and loving woman. I even realize that such a rant is a bit unseemly and may even offend a few readers who detest cancer quackery as much as I do. However, if there’s anyone whose natural demise leads me to such a reaction, Hulda Clark is the one. Although I don’t wish death upon anyone or even hope for anyone’s death, far be it from me to be hypocritical and feign much in the way of sorrow when a woman who has done so much harm to so many patients for so many years is finally, through the fate that awaits each and every one of us sooner or later, rendered unable to do any further harm. And, make no mistake, this is a woman who for over two decades has, in the guise of helping, preyed upon the fears, desperation, and scientific ignorance of many cancer patients in order to sell them useless “cures.” She was one of the most infamous of quacks of the sort that I wrote about yesterday and a few years ago, the kind whose blandishments lure the unwitting into giving up the best shot they have at beating their cancer. Indeed, she could rightly be called the Dark Lord of Quackery.
In a way, Hulda Clark is linked to this blog. Although I haven’t written posts about her that often (maybe only a handful over the last five years), to me her name has become shorthand for exceedingly bizarre medical claims, and the very first substantive post I ever wrote for this blog, now nearly five years ago, was largely about Hulda Clark and her outright wacky medical claims, all in the context of asking why intelligent people choose “alternative medicine” instead of scientific medicine. In that post, I listed a number of Clark’s claims, as documented by Quackwatch:

The adult liver fluke — which she misspells as Faciolopsis buskii — “stays stuck to our intestine, (or liver, causing cancer, or uterus, causing endometriosis, or thymus, causing AIDS, or kidney, causing Hodgkin’s disease).” Or the pancreas, causing diabetes; the brain, causing Alzheimer’s disease; the prostate (causing prostatitis; or the skin if you have Kaposi’s sarcoma.

As soon as there are adults in the liver. . . . a growth factor, called ortho-phospho-tyrosine appears. Growth factors make cells divide. Now YOUR cells will begin to divide too! Now you have cancer. . . . Having propyl alcohol in your body allows the fluke to develop outside of the intestine.

When the fluke and all its stages have been killed, the ortho-phospho-tyrosine is gone! Your cancer is gone.

Clearly, you must do 3 things: (1) Kill the parasite and all its stages; (2) stop letting propyl alcohol into your body; and (3) flush out the metals and common toxins from your body so you can get well.

It is not unusual for someone to have a dozen (or more) of the parasites I have samples of. You can assume that you, too, have a dozen different parasites.

Three herbs, used together, can rid you of over 100 types of parasites: black walnut hulls, wormwood, and common cloves. But the amino acids ornithine and arginine improve this recipe.

Use of these five products will kill the cancer-causing fluke in the first five days and the remaining parasites in another two weeks.

It takes 5 days to be cured of cancer regardless of the type you have. Surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy can be canceled because, after Clark’s recipe cures the cancer, it cannot come back.

All metal (fillings, crowns, bridges, etc.) should be removed from the mouth, and all teeth with root canals should be extracted, because their presence damages the immune system.

To prevent recurrence, stay on a maintenance program of killing parasites and give yourself a high-dose program at least twice a year. Also treat all family members and household pets.

The method is 100% effective in stopping cancer regardless of the type of cancer or how terminal it may be. It follows that this method must work for you, too, if you are able to carry out the instructions.

No matter what kind of cancer you have (or HIV or pains or weakness), a complete program of lifting the burdens on your immune system will miraculously clear it up.

Clark was a particularly bold quack, wasn’t she? Even the woo-iest of woo-meisters usually doesn’t promise “100% cure” and tell patients that they can cancel their surgery or chemotherapy. Moreover, whenever I hear “alt-med” mavens complaining about how brutal chemotherapy is or how hard “conventional” therapies are, I think of Hulda Clark’s requiring that people with fillings have them removed and people with root canals have those teeth removed as part of her “therapy.” Talk about all pain and no gain! She also had developed a series of devices that even a Scientologist would scoff at, so chintzy did they look. As I said before, they really did look as though they were cobbled together from parts Radio Shack. Discarded parts from Radio Shack. Her devices included:

The Syncrometer: This is a device invented by Clark. She claimed it could detect “contaminants” in substances up to one part per trillion, including mercury, viruses, and–of course!–“toxins.” It is described thusly: “The Syncrometer works on the principle of matching resonance frequencies within the body. The electrical circuit made when the client is connected to the Syncrometer has three parts: (1) the audio oscillator (Syncrometer unit), (2) the Syncrometer Test Plate apparatus, and (3) the client. The test plates form platforms for testing compounds, such as flu virus. When a sample is on the test plate will be emitting its own resonance frequency, and that specific frequency becomes part of the circuit. The practitioner then listens for a resonance sound generated by the Syncrometer audio oscillator when the client is connected. If a resonance frequency is detected form the Syncrometer unit, the tested virus is present in the client. If there is no resonance then the client is either not infected by that particular virus, or exists in only a very small quantity.” Pure woo.

The Zapper: “The zapper is a device invented by Dr. Clark. It kills parasites, bacteria, viruses, molds and fungi electrically. Viruses and bacteria disappear in three minutes; tapeworm stages, flukes, roundworms in five; and mites in seven. A battery-operated, positive offset with a very low voltage from 5 to 10 volts is sufficient. It kills parasites and bacteria wherever the current reaches them. But it does not reach the eyes, the appendix, the testes, the inner ear bones. The current travels along the stomach or intestinal wall, not through its content. It does not reach into the gallstones or into the living cells. The current does not pass uniformly through the body. With regular zapping, the current passes mainly through our liquids, i. e our lymphatic and vascular system, a small fraction reaches every organ and tissue of our body. Blood and lymph are the most important locations to zap.”

Homeography: Clark called this a “new science … which is the electronic analog of homeopathy.” (Oh, goody, just what we need.) Through “homoegraphy, Clark fantasized that an “electronic signature” of a substance could be transferred into bottles making a “bottle copy” of the original substance, a process that can then be continued in definitely without any need to buy more of the original substance. Supposedly these “electronic signatures” could be recorded and transferred using The Zapper.

Truly, the arrogance and delusion behind these claims never ceased to amaze me. But that’s not the reason why I am only mildly sorry to see that Clark is gone, a generic sorry that comes from the empathy I have with a fellow human being facing her demise. no matter how much evil that human being has done in her lifetime. Of course, her followers and believers are quite unhappy. For example, witness the over 300 (as of this writing) glowing testimonials at the Hulda Clark Memorial Website. A sampling:

Dr. Erich A. Wolley: “I have the honor, to colaborate with Dr. Clark for many years. I have train by her in her protocols and healing modalities. She was a brilliant reseacher and most compasionate health provider. Her findings and research have change many people’s life, certainlly mine. The world of alternative medicine have lost one of the most briliant and devoted providers. My condolences for all the people that benefit on her work. We are going to miss her. Rest in peace, my mentor and friend.”

bruce e: “Very few Doctors have a desire for knowledge, and the willingness to examine areas, which the drug lords and their governments work to destroy. She offered to people real health science and technology. Her book ‘the cure for all diseases’ is a breakthrough book. Everyone should have a zapper for emergency illnesses.”

G. von Hilsheimer: “Hulda came to my boarding school right after earning her Ph.D., I knew her mostly as a teacher of reading to difficult if not impossible kids. For some years I published her Three Owls Reading Kit as MODERN READING, with a guarantee! Kid can’t read, here’s your money back. Clark’s reading method works, its like pouring reading into young heads. Hulda! What wonderful person. I knew as well of her biological work and found my own life enriched by knowing her and her work. R.I.P. Hulda, genius of biology, and genius of education, wow! You shall be missed.”

Jefferson: “If not for Dr Clark, I would still be at the mercy of Big Pharma and the doctors who do their bidding and distribute their drugs for profit. She taught me to be aware of my surroundings and assess the toxicity of my environment in order to heal myself naturally. She taught me to take back the responsibility for my health. She showed us that there are simple remedies for health while we had been brainwashed into thinking that there were only expensive medicines available through the Disease Establishment. Who will take up the torch?”

Unfortunately, there are a lot of quacks out there who have already taken the torch. I do find it interesting how bruce e refers to needing a Zapper for “emergency illnesses.” Indeed, one admirer wrote:

The big impact of Dr. Clark to my health education came from her books, Cure for All Cancers, Cure for All Diseases and Cure for AIDS, Cure for All Advanced Cancers. Although with my further education into health literacy I would later disagree with the complete de-parasitization of food and the use of artificial vitamins and supplements, I now understand that these were recommendations of Dr. Clark not for longevity health seekers but for her emergency cases in her clinic.

I sense a bit of spin here to counteract the very reasonable (albeit snarky) question regarding Hulda Clark’s death, namely: If she had the cure for “all diseases,” why is she dead? After all, her “publicist’ and attack poodle Tim Bolen described her death as being due to complications from a spinal injury, which were not described further or elaborated upon enough for me to figure out what they might have been. However, the most common complications from spinal injuries that lead to death are septic, either from respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, or from bedsores that become infected. Indeed, even with the best science-based care this can happen; it was an infected bedsore that claimed Christopher Reeve’s life, for example. Surely, if Dr. Clark had the “cure for all diseases,” she should have been able to treat herself for any infectious complications that may have arisen from her spinal injury, shouldn’t she? Or is it too crass of me even to raise that question?

At least Dr. Clark was apparently fortunate enough to have passed away quietly in her sleep. How lucky for her! I hope that’s the way I go when it’s time, nice and peacefully. Unfortunately, all too many of her clients weren’t so lucky. Take, for example, Mercedes Ponzanelli, who sought Clark’s help at her Century Nutrition clinic in 2007 for an osteosarcoma and whose story is told by her daughter, Patricia Chavez:

Based on my mother’s saliva sample, Clark determined that she had traces of polonium, uranium, and clorox in her mouth. Therefore, all metal must be removed from her mouth in order to cleanse her of these toxins. She was told that a digital X-ray and a panoramic X-ray were going to be needed. She was told to go to a specific place they recommended. After the X-rays were reviewed, she was informed that 10 teeth should be removed by the dentist. After the 10 extractions, she provided another saliva sample. She was told she still had polonium, uranium, and clorox in teeth 29 and 30. She was told again that a digital X-ray and a panoramic X-ray were going to be needed. To rid her from these alleged contaminants, she was then asked to go to a dental surgeon, who, of course, Clark recommended, and have cavitations scraped out and cleansed. After the scraping, she provided another saliva sample. She was then told that she still had polonium, uranium, and clorox in tooth 29. Clark instructed my mother to go back to the surgeon and have her cavitations filed and scraped out again to get rid of the toxins in her mouth once and for all. The dental surgeon removed the stitches, reopened the incisions, and scraped. You can only imagine how painful that must have been. After the 2nd scraping, Hulda analyzed another saliva sample and told my mother that tooth 29 was now clear but that due to the scrapings, the surrounding teeth had been contaminated and she still had traces of polonium, uranium, and clorox in her mouth. She was told to keep rinsing her mouth with dental bleach, a product sold at the Self Health Resource Center in Chula Vista, Calfornia. (I understand that it is run by Clark’s son.) My mother was also instructed to purchase all of her “individually tailored” supplements there. Another week went by in which she had to keep rinsing her mouth with dental bleach. Clark said they could not move to the next stage of her treatment until my mother’s saliva test showed that her mouth no longer had polonium, uranium, and clorox. Then she was told that her saliva test was clear and that she could start taking the supplements that would kill her malignancy. Once the malignancy is killed, she is now cured of cancer. My mother was told that once they have completed the program that she will not see an immediate size reduction of the size of her tumor; but that it would occur because she will have been cured by then.

That’s on top of using the Zapper, the Ozonator, and the Syncrometer. The result, alas, was predictable. After completing the treatment, Clark told Ponzanelli (Chavez’ mother) that her tumor was dead and gone but that its shrinkage to nothing might not be evident for a while, which is why Clark discouraged her from obtaining a post-“treatment” MRI of her tumor. It took a few weeks, but Chavez ultimately persuaded her mother to get an MRI, and this was what it showed:

When she picked up her MRI results, my worst fears came true. She did lose valuable time. While under Clark’s treatment, her tumor grew to two-and-a-half times its initial size. My mother was devastated. Shortly after that, she started chemo.

Unfortunately, although she responded to the chemotherapy, Ponzanelli was so thin and debilitated from the nutritional regimen to which she had submitted and likely due to her tumor’s progression that she did not do well with the chemotherapy and died of what sounds like neutropenic sepsis.

The cruelty inherent in the methods advocated and promoted by Hulda Clark weren’t limited to physical pain, either, as this story of a woman treated by a follower of Hulda Clark’s protocols shows:

The practitioner told her that her beloved pets maybe were the cause of her cancer by infecting her with the parasite! He urged her to get the animals (5 dogs, 4 cats and birds) out of the house. She managed to place all the animals with others, except 2 dogs, which were also treated with the zapper! I must tell that she was single, and her pets were her whole life and heart. She had a limited circle of friends, whom all have dogs, cats and other animals. She therefore could not visit them, nor ask them to visit her, because she was afraid of being re-infected! Even her mother, who took care of her, could not bring her dogs, they had to be placed with others too. She and her mother ended up sitting very much alone – and THAT I find to be really cruel! Taking away a terminal person’s last joy of life, and placing a false hope for full recovery.

Now that’s seriously cruel.

Now that Hulda Clark’s life is apparently over, what can we say about her 80 years on this planet? Was she evil? Probably not consciously so. My guess is that she probably truly did believe in all the woo that she peddled. Although it probably took an extreme act of self-delusion to do so, Clark most likely even believed that she was helping people, even as she subjected them to indignities such as having many teeth pulled for no good reason and her protocols led to the recommendation that cancer patients get rid of their pets to avoid being “reinfected” by imaginary parasites that supposedly gave them cancer. Motivation aside, though, there is no doubt at all that Clark, who, given her real scientific training early in her life and 20 years as a government scientist of some sort, both of which should allowed her to know better, did great evil. We can feel sympathy for her family and friends, especially any who had nothing to do with Clark’s “medical practice,” because they have lost a mother, a sister, a grandmother, but we should not forget those who were denied their best hope of beating their cancers by relying on the quackery spread by Hulda Clark.

I think the best memorial for Hulda Clark comes from Albin Kirsty, who several years ago asked this about Hulda Clark’s methods:

Where are all of the people who have been cured of cancer by following Hulda Clark’s parasite cleansing program? One would think their numbers would be very high by now because Hulda Clark and others have been promoting her ‘cure’ for many years. She first published her book “A Cure For All Cancers” in 1993. That’s over ten years ago.

Is it not reasonable to believe that someone who has been cured of the disease would tell other people who are also sick, so that they too could be spared from death? Hulda Clark has posted testimonials on her website. Did these cured cancer patients keep their miraculous recovery to themselves, and not tell others?

In other words, where are all the cured people?

Or is it that they do not exist? Where are all of these hundreds, if not thousands, of people whom Hulda Clark has supposedly “cured” of advanced cancer or AIDS over the last 25 years or so, conditions so advanced that modern scientific medicine had little to offer them?

The deafening silence in response to that question is Clark’s true legacy. It is a silence as profound as the grave where Clark will spend the rest of eternity.

ADDENDUM:

To what should my wondering eyes appear early this morning but this e-mail:

In Memory of Dr. Hulda Clark
by David P. Amrein

Dr. Clark passed away last Thursday, 3 September, as a result of complications from a spinal cord injury.

The first time I heard of Dr. Hulda Clark was in 1995, when I came across her book about cancer. This sparked my interest and gave my whole life a new perspective. I met Dr. Clark personally in the summer of 1996. She immediately came across as an energetic woman whose only interest is her work and her patients. Dr. Clark would work every minute that she did not spend with her grandchildren, either at the clinic or doing more research at home.

What amazed me about Dr. Clark was her complete disinterest in material things. Often enough I was a bit worried when I saw her driving around in her old clunker. She just had no needs that went beyond just the basic needs. That mindset led Dr. Clark to share her research freely with the whole world. Except for the books themselves, Dr. Clark never had any commercial interests, but published her findings in her books for everyone to use. She even allowed anyone to freely make copies of her books, if they were not sold. I remember a time when someone illegally published one of her books in Mexico and when she was asked if she did not want to do something about that, she said: “oh well, at least the public can read my books”.

Dr. Clark’s interest in her research became apparent the many times I saw her speak in public. Even to audiences who had little knowledge of her findings, she would prefer to speak about her latest research, rather than give a general overview. Her research took her down many avenues: she can be called a true pioneer in a number of areas. Her frequency approach to cancer was unique, but in the last couple of years low intensity electric field treatments for cancer have been rather well studied and shown to work. Though parasites were an issue in holistic medicine among the bio-resonance testers especially, it was Dr. Clark who made this a major topic starting with the publication of her first book in 1993. She also focused on the importance of dental health, as well as environmental factors. Those topics had already been recognized as important in holistic medicine, but her major contribution was the proposition of a complete protocol that included all the important factors, namely environmental factors, dental health, nutrition, herbal approaches and cleansing, and frequencies.

Dr. Clark has not only given my life a new slant, but has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands around the globe who have been able to help themselves with the knowledge that she has brought forth. Dr. Clark has suffered severe attacks from adversaries and Government and has nevertheless carried on, for the benefit of health and mankind. I feel that the world loses a great find, and so do I. We are thankful for Dr. Clark’s dedication and contribution and she will always be in our hearts. Thank you, Dr. Clark, for everything!

We will continue our efforts in her spirit and keep bringing her wisdom to the world.

According to her wishes, Dr. Clark will be cremated and her ashes given to the Pacific Ocean, which she so loved, in a private ceremony.

Amrein makes it all sound so benign. “Dental health”? Clark required patients to have fillings removed, sockets scraped, and any teeth with a root canal pulled. If you didn’t know just how quacky her methods were and how many patients were potentially harmed by Clark, you might even think she was a respectable “researcher.”

David, I have to admit that you again proved me wrong. I keep thinking that there is no possible way that you could get any more immature, but you somehow keep sinking to new lows. Really, David, you can still show some respect for her, even if you don’t agree with her. I don’t agree with her, either, but I at least have the decency and compassion to respect the fact that she has died.
Sadly, though, I have a feeling that when you die, there will be quite a few people out there writing similar insulting and disrespectful drivel as the one you posted today.

Spinal cord injury, eh? Maybe it was the result of trying to pat herself on the back too many times for fleecing still more gullible people.

I think it may be too much to say that the world is a better place without her in it, but I think it’s a safer place without her practicing her quackery. If only we could round up the rest of her devotees and make sure they don’t continue to spread the damage.

…you can still show some respect for her, even if you don’t agree with her.

Respect is earned in life, and shouldn’t be given away freely simply because someone has died. I won’t go so far as to demean her memory in the face of her loved ones, but the woman did not earn respect from the scientific community. If she didn’t earn it, she doesn’t deserve it, alive or dead.

There is an ancient saying, de mortuis nil nisi bonum: concerning the dead, [say] nothing unless [it is] good. And that is a wise saying. I think many of us have qualms about all-out attacks on the dead, at a time when their families are at their most vulnerable and they themselves can no longer speak in their own defense. Regretfully, though, a different quote must apply here:

“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones[.]”

For all the outraged, outraged Clark supporters who will shortly post frothing and mostly gramatically correct condemnations along the lines of “But Orac said she was a quack / And Orac is a honorable man”: Clark may have been, I allow, a good person in other ways. A good mother or grandmother, perhaps; donating generously to charity; kind to animals; and so on. But all that went into her grave with her. Her legacy remains, and if left unchallenged, will continue to delude cancer patients into graves more untimely and unquiet than Clark’s own. It must be opposed, even if it requires speaking ill of the dead.

Hypocrisy, why do you keep posting Orac’s name as if you discovered some well hidden state secret? Are you under the impression it bothers him? Are you trying to intimidate him by insinuating you know who he is in “real-life”? Or are you just doing it to try and be condescending as if some random anonymous troll on the Internet like you commands any respect?

No one is impressed with your super sleuthing. It’s well known information that anyone that even pays attention here in the slightest knows.

she was worse than a killer; she manipulated all those people that she killed with false hope. how much more cruel can you be? and speaking the truth of people after they are dead is not disrespect, it’s setting the record straight; it’s what reality-based people shoud do.

I found that anecdote about the woman she treated to be about as mind-bogglingly idiotic as I could imagine.

Most odd was the part about constantly testing the saliva and finding “polonium, uranium, and clorox.” Really? Her problem was two trans-uranic radioactive elements and a household cleaner?

But this is the real clincher for me:

She was told to keep rinsing her mouth with dental bleach,

So wait a minute – the treatment for finding clorox in her mouth was …. bleach?

After being involved with internet discussions for about 18 years now (on usenet long before the concept of a blog), for the first time in my life, I did a face-palm.

Granted, I don’t believe for a second that she detected polonium, uranium, OR clorox in the woman’s saliva, but just the idea that she was using a dental bleach and complaining about detecting clorox is beyond loopy.

What was her PhD in? Sadly, I don’t have access to the dissertations database to see if she is in there.

Completely agree with Dan J. Just because she has died doesn’t mean we must bring out the kid gloves. The only positive this woman may have done for her patients was to offer them a shoulder to cry on as they died.

This video is from an Australian comedy show, and hence contains a few references not understood outside of here, but still sums up the peverse attitude of comment #2 quite well . . . .

Some credulous person on PBS did some shows extolling H Clark about ten years ago. (She was represented by an associate because she was on the run from the law at the time.) This may have been pre-syncrometer. The guy demonstrated how he could hook you up to the probes of a diagnostic device (a volt-ohm meter (VOM) powered by a nine volt battery) and from the resistance reading he could tell if you had a problem.

Then, he would hook you up to the terminals of the zapper, which ran off a nine volt battery, to cure you. (Do you see where I am going with this?) The process was instantaneous; but they left you hooked-up for a significant time (perhaps 10-15 minutes). After that time, they check you again with the VOM, and the reading indicates you are cured.

The VOM and the zapper do exactly the same thing- allow a tiny trickle of electricity to pass through the body. That is to say, the zapper is redundant. But wait, there’s more! The before and after readings on the VOM are different in a consistent way- doesn’t that demonstrate a real effect? Not at all, the readings of the VOM are strongly influenced by small differences in the placement or pressure used to apply the probe. You can get any reading you want without the subject realizing you have engineered the result. I have done it.

This case brings up another issue, the elephant in the room, if it were. While I have no love for charletons and their co-conspirators (note that the dentist in the story above has to be considered an accomplace; no dentist in their right mind would extract a tooth and scrap the hole to remove “polonium”, so that person is definately in on the scam), at some level, you have to look at the gullible populace and wonder, what is WRONG with you? There is a level of..well, call it ignorance here that is astounding. I mean, this isn’t normal lunacy, which might sound plausable, this is out and out off-scale. There has to be a point somewhere where even the most credulous person has to say, “no way?”

I’m reminded of something I saw on 60 Minutes some time back, about some guys in Canada scamming money from the elderly in the US. Of course, the scam was “send cash,” but it went even farther. The scammers seriously told the people, “tuck your cash in the pages of a magazine to hide it from the customs agents.” AND THEY DID IT!!!! They sent hundred dollar bills interspersed in the pages of magazines across the US/Canada border. At what point do you say, you deserve what you get?

Respect for the dead? Bollocks.
I have no respect for Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin or Jeffrey Dahmer — why in blazes should I have any respect for a woman who spent her life killing people by gross medical malpractice ? Perhaps I should speak respectfully of “Dr” Linda Hazard, early 20th century homeopath who starved people to death in her “clinic” because she believed it would cure them ?

Before I respond, let first say I agree with your general gist, so when I reply/object, I’m not trying to criticize your point so much as to build on it. Here goes:

at some level, you have to look at the gullible populace and wonder, what is WRONG with you?

Simple: Desperation and fear. Pretty much all of this woo preys on one or the other (or both). Even my very sensible wife has said that if she had terminal cancer she would likely try some pretty wacky treatments according to the “what have I got to lose” argument (I understand the fallacies in that argument, but desperation has a way of making people ignore fallacies…)

Desperation and fear are very effective at getting people to ignore reality. We are probably all guilty of it to some extent, though here we clearly hope that our better natures usually win out.

That doesn’t make it any less enraging… especially when the gullible happen to be birthers, where it is the fear of a black man, and the desperation that they can’t retroactively change the result of the election. I sympathize with anti-vax parents (not anti-vax activists, but parents who have been suckered in) because their rational faculties are clouded by fear for their children’s safety. I can respect what drives them even if I have no respect for where they ended up. But the birthers… Ick. My sympathy for people who are driven to the irrational out of fear ends when it is a racist fear.

At what point do you say, you deserve what you get?

Perhaps you meant this largely rhetorically, but I don’t think the answer is all that important. Obviously no actions by the victim can convince us that we shouldn’t go after the conman. Some actions by the victim may rise to the level of burnin’ stupid where our sense of fairness prohibits us from helping the victim, when resources would be better spent elsewhere — but this is parameterized by the scarcity of resources, i.e. if all other world problems were solved and the only one left was fraud, we could probably choose to reimburse the victims of fraud no matter how stupid or reckless their actions were.

Where I really feel uneasy — though probably this is necessary — is when we are forced by the rule of law to actively punish the victim because of the collateral damage they have caused. I’ve read about victims of various twists on the Spanish Prisoner going to jail for cashing bad checks when a reasonable person should have known by that point that the check would bounce. I just don’t know how I feel about that… :/

Clark may be gone but she is survived by 3 sons- one of them actually *hired* Bolen, so we can guess where his sentiments and future activities lie.Bolen is a piece of work(see Quackwatch- Patrick “Tim” Bolen): he conducted the “Libel Campaign agaist Quackwatch and Dr. Barrett” and maintains a website about “quackbusters” called “Quackpotwatch”(creative titling!). You may have noticed that while woo-slingers may carp and cavil on about their so-called persecutors (i.e. bloggers, Big Pharma) but never directly *name* them, because….. the marks, I mean *fans*, could then google up “Quackwatch”, “Stephen Barrett”, or “Orac” and read the sorry truth. So, they rant and rail about quackbusters and quackpots and the search leads back to them (like Uruboros,a snake eating its tail).

Even my very sensible wife has said that if she had terminal cancer she would likely try some pretty wacky treatments according to the “what have I got to lose” argument

Slightly off topice, but would she try a phase I clinical trial on the same argument? Phase I clinical trials have the following advantages over woo:
1. They are based on actual biology, even if it is the biology of mice not humans, and thus have a certain chance of succeeding
2. Even if they don’t help you the knowledge gained could help others, so you’re doing a service to the community. Unlike with woo where you’re not helping anyone because even if you do stumble on a woo that works woosters don’t keep records which allow for adequate evaluation and so no one will know that it really works or for what exactly.

On the other hand, phase I trials might be wild and different enough to appeal to the “what have I got to lose” receptor in people’s brains. They’re generally of treatments that are clearly _different_ from the standard of care and may thus appeal. In short, would woo be less attractive if more legitimate “crazy” alternatives were available?

Y’all should check out the comments on the Hulda memorial website. It’s a classic compendium of opinions from the hostile, confused and deluded.

“Despite her great works she was relentlessly chased and persecuted by the evil US medical-industrial gestapo. Even then, Hulda stood her ground strongly and never caved into the demands and attacks of the dark side…

We know you are living, truly living in the 5th
or 6th dimension where only love reigns…Om,Om Om. ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ
…the world of doctors should bow down for all she wanted to do was save life and all they do is prescribe poison and death.”

And most touching of all:

“I will continue zapping in memory of you!”

Maybe someone will sponsor a Zapper Memorial Sale, so we all can be rid of our parasitical skepticism and stop depending on fluky science. 🙁

However, I think it is important that I bring your attention to this offensive post by one of her opponents. I do hope that her family takes legal action against this particular reprehensible human being.” followed by a link to this post. I wonder how many will follow it? Orac may be in for a flood, lol.

I watched a few minutes of the video. The part that caught my attention was the mention of wormwood. Wormwood is used in the manufacture of absinthe. While a lot of the madness associated with absinthe may be due to contaminants in the production process, why would anyone expect Hulda Clark to use production methods that are in any way free of contaminants? I expect her to be meeting with 2 equally crazy people on a heath, stirring a cauldron, and chanting during the manufacture of her cure.

Insanity is the simplest explanation for her treatments. apparently her treatments are no better at curing insanity, than they are at curing everything else she imagines she cures.

Maybe she meant that she was curing the patients as in preparing them as food. She may have been using that definition of curing. Nothing about her suggests that cannibalism is too extreme for her.

As for the defenders of this murderer and torturer – you are the ones, who should be ashamed.

You can’t libel the dead, and, other than the foray into the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch (which may have been going too far; perhaps I should have restrained myself), there’s nothing in this post that isn’t true. I’m actually sympathetic to Dr. Clark’s family. It hurts to lose a loved one, and I’m sure that to her family she came across as the charming old lady that she appeared otherwise.

To those wondering if her ‘patients’ don’t deserve some responsibility for following her absurd diagnoses and treatments, I would submit that you don’t quite realize how startlingly ignorant many people are regarding the most basic aspects of biology or medicine. I work at a lab with a lot of psych students, and few of them could tell you more about cancer than that it involves cells multiplying out of control, and many people I know ascribe to the ‘toxins’ belief regarding illness. I know of a student at my university who doesn’t believe in dinosaurs (not strictly relevant, but it’s been bothering me for days).

If someone in a white coat with a degree does some ‘tests’ and uses science-y sounding words, many people will believe them. If they follow the maverick doctor and alt-med narrative, they’re even more likely to go along with it.

Now, that dentist from the anecdote… someone should have had a word with someone regarding their license. But then I don’t know how the Geiers are able to practise either.

This blog obviously written by a drug dealer…uh, I mean doctor, of course.

Dr. Clark didn’t advocate quitting your medical therapy, although if you were cured you wouldn’t need it anymore, right?

Teaching people to clean up their environment, eat better food and avoid toxins is by no means quackery. Quackery by definition of your site and others you quote is simply any health advice that doesn’t put money into the pockets of surgeons and drug companies.

What a shame that you have to write a post like this after somebody dies. And what an insensitive comment about her not having “The Cure for all Diseases” after all…pretty stupid since she didn’t die from a disease and what a shock…died at the hands of a surgeon instead. Gee, doesn’t that prove she believed in getting “professional” medical attention when warranted?

You seem to know more about how Dr. Clark died than has been revealed online. Perhaps you would enlighten us how she died at the hands of a surgeon. I am only going by what her admirers are saying about her. If their account is incorrect, I will listen to other evidence.

You’re also wrong about Clark not telling patients to give up their surgery and chemotherapy. It’s well documented that she did that many times.

To those wondering if her ‘patients’ don’t deserve some responsibility for following her absurd diagnoses and treatments,

To be honest, that would basically be me. I wouldn’t want to presume anyone else shares my not-so-generous view on this 🙂

I would submit that you don’t quite realize how startlingly ignorant many people are regarding the most basic aspects of biology or medicine.

Alas, call me an optimist…

If someone in a white coat with a degree does some ‘tests’ and uses science-y sounding words, many people will believe them.

On one hand, yes. For example, Clark uses fancy words like “ortho-phosphotyrosine” which sounds impressive (actually, if she is talking about O-phosphotyrosine, it actually exists and is an important part of many biochemical pathways; unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the nonsense she is spouting). However, the reason I don’t buy the “someone in a white coat who runs tests and uses science-y sounding words” excuse is because that should apply to any doctor. No, her patients specifically seek her out as something MORE than someone in a white coat. And I realize that the old “evil pharma” mantra is appealing to some, this isn’t just about doctors, she has drug others into the mix as well. Are normal dentists part of the evil pharma conspiracy, too? Come on, you’d think that even the most ignorant (using that in a technical sense) people would realize that removing fillings and scraping out the sockets is well outside of standard activities for a dentist.

If something like that doesn’t set of question marks, then life has certainly failed these people miserably.

Even my very sensible wife has said that if she had terminal cancer she would likely try some pretty wacky treatments according to the “what have I got to lose” argument

Slightly off topice, but would she try a phase I clinical trial on the same argument?

Almost certainly, though I must admit I’m getting a little uncomfortable exploring too deeply a hypothetical that involves my wife dying of cancer… :/

But anyway, to answer your question, I believe she would, yes.

I think perhaps you are taking the thought experiment a bit too literally. It’s just an example of how a person’s dedication to rationality can be contingent on aspects of their current life situation. I am pretty sure we all are like that to a lesser or greater extent…

Almost certainly, though I must admit I’m getting a little uncomfortable exploring too deeply a hypothetical that involves my wife dying of cancer… :/

I can imagine! May it never come to be anything other than a hypothetical! Your post started me thinking about whether there were other ways to satisfy the entirely understandable and possibly even laudible (but easily misused) impulse to want to do something-anything-in the face of impending doom than go for a random woo. Ways that might actually be useful instead of just wasting the dying person’s precious time and resources. I think that doctors are sometimes reluctant to bring up clinical trials for fear that patients will feel that they are being used…well, some will, I expect, but others may see being involved with a clinical trial as an opportunity to help others even if they themselves aren’t helped by them.

Those who support Dr. Clark will probably meet no scorn or derision here if they can provide published, peer-reviewed, scientific data supporting the efficacy of her “Syncrometer” or “Zapper”. I’m certain that we would all be very happy to see the information.

I’m pretty sure Orac would retract any statement of his that can be proven false.

Let’s not forget this shameful episode: Libertarians are supposed to be anti-fraud and pro-science, but in 2000, the Libertarian Party of Kentucky held a “Health Freedom Rally” in defense of Hulda Clark.

At DC, though I agree that there is little difference between HC and Garrido (or Hitler…or any other deluded person who commits horrible acts on others), it is possible that not all of Garrido’s victims are alive. A human bone was found by investigators on his property.

However, the most common complications from spinal injuries that lead to death are septic, either from respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, or from bedsores that become infected.

You’re thinking like an MD who only sees the ones who make it to definitive care. From my perspective out in the field, it’s a bit different: respiratory arrest is ugly and easy to die from out there. If the injury is in the C4/C5 region (very common site) the patient can maintain secondary respiration for a while but it’s very tiring, so eventually the intercostal muscles get too fatigued to continue. At which point the patient is laboring for every last gasp [1].

How is this relevant? Simple: it’s quite possible that HC suffered a treatable spinal injury — and “knew better” than to let someone who actually, like, knows how to treat them save her life. This is consistent with Allison’s comment #32 above.

[1] Did I mention that it’s a really terrifying way to die? Even Hulda Clark didn’t deserve that, if that’s what happened.

Dear trolls – I don’t get why you are offended, though, if something is factual it can be said about the living and the recently deceased, can’t it? And apparently it is a fact that Hulda has killed many people with her “treatments”.

anon, re. grouppekurosawa. I never read their articles, but somehow I got the impression they promote rather experimental science than quackery. Or am I wrong?

re: grouppekurosawa- first I heard of them.If you look over the site’s “Natural Medecine Public Blog” you can read postings by the late Dr.Steve(April-July, 2009)as he discusses his own illness.It appears he did not rely solely on his own treatments.I wonder how *that* will be spun by his grieving adherents?

Clark was, like me, an alumni of the University of Saskatchewan. Her education there was in biology. I wonder what led her from sensible science to wooism.

The claims that mainstream doctors and others criticising the Clarks of the world are doing it only for money are amusing. Clark made a lot of money selling her stuff, such as a case mentioned in her Wikipedia entry where a family spent some 30 thousand dollars on Clark treatments that had zero effect on their daughter’s illness.

She may have been self-deluded about the cleansing crap she was foisting on a very needy and fragile clientele but I find it hard to believe the various 9v battery scams were offered without understanding of their fraudulent nature. Anyone who has ever handled a volt/ohm meter will recognize the foolishness of believing any stable, repeatable measurements were ever possible on human skin. Moisture, dirt, nervousness, probe pressure all influence the galvanic response and therefore no reading is valid.

It reminds me of the trick we used to play on new scouts with a compass on a picnic table. If you place the compass over a metal bolt head used to build the table, it moves the needle to make north point any direction you like. Fun for the whole troop and an unintended lesson in skepticism. The difference is, we admitted our prank and, of course, no one died.

I’ve always been fascinated by this idea that “you should not speak ill of the dead”. Why should a disgusting, amoral fraud like Clark deserve respect just because she has done the only decent thing in her life, which is die? She was prepared to lie to desperate people in order to get her hands on their money. She built her fortune by trampling on the hopes and bodies of sick people.

I like to imagine that supporters of another form of quackery have been showing respect to her. Specifically, the thought of a group of urine therapists pissing on her corpse brings a big smile to my face.

I think it’s wrong to take enjoyment from someone’s death, regardless of who it was. That’s a little different than not speaking ill of the dead. If someone misled people to the detriment of their health, especially when it led to many of them dying, that should be stated loudly and often. That said I don’t mind a little gallows humor, probably because I think nothing is sacred.

“50)anon, re. grouppekurosawa. I never read their articles, but somehow I got the impression they promote rather experimental science than quackery. Or am I wrong?”

Your wrong, big time.

He cherry picked a ton of scientific abstracts to make his garbage appear scientific, and asked people to be “human mice” and try his ridiculous “protocols.”

The only reason he was able to snow people with his “scientific” mumbo jumbo was because science education is sorely lacking in this country. Throw around a few big scientific words, snow the public, sell your garbage….

I guess I might have waited a while myself before penning the epitath… though if obituaries appear anywhere other than the Alt.Reality press, they are unlikely to be much kinder to Hulda Clark than Orac has been.

A line which might be apposite in this context is the following, often attributed to Voltaire, and famously quoted by Hunter S. Thompson in his writings about his vanished (and presumed dead) friend Oscar Acosta:

I’ve been lurking here forever, but rarely comment and I’ve been thinking about something that came up on this thread lately. Why do seemingly intelligent people fall for woo, particularly the kind that talks about “toxins.”

I think it has to do with the fact that some things in our environment are toxic and we sometimes call them toxins. Arsenic, uranium, household cleaners, tobacco smoke, asbestos, whatever it was that was dumped at Love Canal and other Superfund sites, deadly nightshade, pig crap, rotten food, and mustard gas are all dangerous (at various concentrations) and can lead to severe disease and death. They are toxic. In the past we didn’t necessarily understand that these things could cause illness and death. Are people thinking “we didn’t used to know cigarettes cause cancer, but now we do” when someone says some new “toxin” is dangerous and science just hasn’t discovered that yet? Do they think it’s not far-fetched to believe that cancer could be caused by some “toxin” in our body that we just haven’t discovered is carcinogenic?

I think there’s a connection between the famous cases of toxic chemicals being released into the environments of unsuspecting people (Love Canal, PG&E) that later caused birth defects, cancers and other health complications and the willingness of people to accept that mysterious “toxins” are making us sick. These sorts of famous cases also feed into people not trusting corporations.

Sorry about the long post.

One less woo-peddler to prey upon the sick and gullible isn’t a bad thing in my mind.

Laura – that’d be appropriate given he’s hilariously been termed a thermometer by his former employers.

I tried to watch the quack snake oil video and had to stop when she brought up religion. Every disease results from parasites from milk and meat? Kosher products don’t have these parasites? What a load. If it’s in one, it’s in all of it. She ought to have been keeping track of the meat packing industry in northern iowa with its reliance on slave-like labor and un-kosher conditions. But they got the K for years before being busted.

The only real parasite was Clark herself. Good riddance. And to Sue M. ranting about the death of this blog owner, honey take some time off and collect your thoughts. Or maybe you need to find someone new to repair your Clark products?

It amuses me that the pro-Clark camp are bagging Orac for speaking ill of the dead. Yet they are only too happy to accuse the living of vile things (such as killing people in the name of “big pharma”.) When they attribute good motives to the people they disagree with, then perhaps the skeptic camp will too. In the meantime, their attacks are considerably more strong, because ad hominen is their best weapon (evidence being, of course, their weakest).

Anyway, the taboo about speaking ill of the dead applies to their family, to save extra grief in a difficult time. Not to other third parties. So it would be the height of rudeness to send a message to her family now gloating — but no-one is doing that. The rule has never applied to public figures, because they have chosen to have a public life. I will speak ill of Stalin, dead or not.

I think Orac’s “obituary” is admirably respectful. I admire how, while certainly boiling inside at the thought of all the patients who suffered atrocious pain and died horrible deaths, he still managed to include a few words about the gried of Clark’s relatives. Sorry, I don’t think you can’t get more respectful than this.

By the way, isn’t propyl alcohol a toxic substance? If you have some in your body, I’m sure you risk problems…

Of all the things that are worthy to speak about in this dredful woman’s passing, I have to admit that I fixated on the black walnut hulls, as I have a number of the trees in my yard. Black walnut hulls are good for two main things: Dyeing fabric and paper (and one’s hands, if one isn’t careful) various shades of yellow, and for a type of fishing that involves throwing the hulls into water to poison all the fish in the immediate area (I don’t remember if it kills them or just stuns them so they float to the surface and suffocate).

Ms Clark’s books may have been ones that my dad was reading when he was supposed to be taking his high blood pressure medication. Instead, against the advice of my mother (8th grade education, but wise nevertheless) and his doctor, he followed some herbal shmerbal regimen. He passed out at work one day and had to go to the hospital. He recovered, and vowed to listen to (1) his wife and (2) his doctor, in perhaps that order.

As for the anecdotes Orac mentions here, the pain and suffering of the woman who had to have teeth extracted, etc., was pretty awful. (I’ve had two root canals, so I have some inkling of what she had to suffer.) But reading the story about the terminally ill single woman who had to give up her pets was heartrending. I have known shut-ins like that; all they had to live for were their kitties and doggies. To insist someone give up that source of comfort goes beyond cruel.

We may gloat about Clark’s passing, but her books live on. Her particular Land of Woo still has plenty of inhabitants.

admit that I fixated on the black walnut hulls, as I have a number of the trees in my yard. Black walnut hulls are good for two main things

Um, ew!!

I didn’t watch the whole vid so I missed that part, but uh… yeah. My wife and I harvested the black walnuts in our yard last year. It was a neat thing to do, we made black walnut ice cream at one point, though I don’t think we’ll harvest them again because the shells are so frikkin’ tough that I hardly ever ate them.

Anyway, dehulling them was NASTY. Stupid me, I didn’t wear gloves, so my hands looked like I’d just shoved them in mud for the next couple of days. Smell was terrible, feel of them on your hands is terrible, they stain like all-get-out.

Did you use zapper on yourself when cold, flu or headache was coming? I did and since then I did not take any drugs. Zapping helped each time. How ? I do not care. Is this scientifically proven? I do not care. Is it forbidden ? I do not care. Is it working ? I do care !!!

Noadi, personally I’m impartial towards her death but actually I don’t think it’s that imoral/bad to take joy in someone’s death. As long as you never harm, or worse, kill someone else, I couldn’t care less about your disgust towards certain people, even if you’re dancing on their grave. Sure, sometimes taking such joy is slightly crazy and sometimes it’s understandable, but as long as you’re not breaking any laws… does it really matter all that much?

David, I have to admit that you again proved me wrong. I keep thinking that there is no possible way that you could get any more immature, but you somehow keep sinking to new lows. Really, David, you can still show some respect for her, even if you don’t agree with her. I don’t agree with her, either, but I at least have the decency and compassion to respect the fact that she has died.

Why? She could be every bit the killer John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy was… Perhaps more so. Think about it, each one of them got about 30 victims.

While this quack made a living at this for, what, a decade? How many people did she kill by convincing people to forgo life-saving medical treatments with her quackery? Let’s say JUST ONE every other month for a decade. Hardly a blip, yet that’s That’s be 60… Just three short of the combined Gacy/Bundy body-count.

We know of one. Orac put it in the post. How many more? Really, how many more people DIED because she LIED? Sincere or cynical, I don’t care. The lie is the lie and clearly people died.

Let’s not forget this shameful episode: Libertarians are supposed to be anti-fraud and pro-science, but in 2000, the Libertarian Party of Kentucky held a “Health Freedom Rally” in defense of Hulda Clark.

Posted by: LindaRosaRN | September 9, 2009 5:16 PM

Not really. You’d think so. But, in fact, not really. In my experience, most of them are self-centered, petty-tyrant-kingdom-of-one-corporatist-CEO-wanna-bes that are as every bit as gullible/deluded as the deniers/new-agers are in theirs. And they’d have to be to live with their goof-ball economic/behavioral theories that have been shown, decade after decade, to be Utopian Pipe Dreams that fail utterly in the real world.

I always wondered about that. If saying the truth about someone after they’re dead isn’t the most courteous time to say it, I don’t know when’s better. It can’t hurt her feelings, now, so who really cares?

If more people had called her a quackittywackwachjob while she was alive, maybe she’d have found something worthwhile to do.

Do not waste your time in composing and writing boolshit thousand of people around the world already know who Dr Clark was and many people know the truth that you are trying to hide for reasons that everybody already know. I am a doctor and like Dr Pablo Ramirez in my clinic (Buenos Aires) we have cured thousand of people about cancer and other INCURABLE illness with Dr Clark Protocol. Please avoid writing boolshit about Mr Amrein he and all his staff in Berne are very serious people. I hope that the Fasciolopsis Buski and the Clostridium are on their way to welcome and lead people like you directly to a nice and wonderful grave.
Cordially.
Dr Victor Estevez Riverol.
(Buenos Aires)

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I can confirm that Dr Riverol at his clinic in Buenos Aires cured my carcinoma with a lot of metastasis with the protocol of this incredible lady (Dr Clark) that you are painstakingly trying to slander. Sorry but you will not be able result are there and people are still alive. You are just a slanders!!! Give up!!!! Change your mission is better!!!!
Cordially.
Carlos Cruz Santana

I live in the northeast of Italy and nearby my hometown there is a practice where a germany doctor (Dr Schreiber) cured my wife`s colon cancer with the protocol of Dr clark. At the beginning I was very suspicious about that thinking that it was just an ripping-off but surprisingly I have to say that in just 4 months my wife was cured and a few weeks later on the Channel 5 (Berlusconi network) I have seen a program (STRISCIA La NOTIZIA) where they were freely trying to slander Dr Clark as a criminal. Reading your blog know we cam make up all the story and as far as I am concerned whilst reading I can tell you that there are thousand of people cured not only about cancer so as Dr riverol said it is better not to waste time try to dedicate your time to other mission but not to slander Dr Clark you are just WASTING YOUR TIME………..
Regards.
Silvio Carli de Benedetti.

“Do not waste your time in composing and writing boolshit thousand of people around the world already know who Dr Clark was and many people know the truth that you are trying to hide for reasons that everybody already know. I am a doctor and like Dr Pablo Ramirez in my clinic (Buenos Aires) we have cured thousand of people about cancer and other INCURABLE illness”

Wow, I have to say I kind of like the “Mr.” Ramel… Oh, and I Babelfish’d the spanish post, basicly a pharma shill gambit and some insults before recommending the late quack (dead duck?) for an nobel prize. Enjoy:

Dear Sirs, Alive in Lima and two years ago I was on the verge of dying of liver cancer, when I knew of the clinic of Mexico where the Dra.Clark me atendio with much humility and not only I cure cancer but when saying to him my economic situation that podia not to pay everything in once but little by little, she said to me that valia did not worry to me that to my life but that money AND nonQUIZO NO ECONOMIC COMPENSATION. Then, reading in this blog all the barbarisms that the SR.ORAC AND FRIENDLY Common estan writing, fodder simply that this blog is all a fiction to hide the reasons of created interests, (the discoveries of the Dra.Clark) only desire that all you are directly going to die in but the deep thing of HELL. Only them desire that do not happen through the hell that happens…. This woman but who insults, deserves a Nobel prize by the discoveries done during her professional life. Poor humanity, ignorant that does not know in that world lives….HULDA RESTS PEACEFULLY CLARK.

Gentlemen, I am called Ester and written of Buenos Aires I can confirm that the Dr Riverol says the veredad, I only cure of cancer with the protocol of the Dra Clark in 15 weeks, agabais with all these lies him veredad saldra outside soon. Greetings. Ester Ramirez Fertile valley

I see the liars for quackery are out in full force. What you selling us? Homeopathy? Zappers? More lies about the false causes of cancer? Liver flukes! Come on!!! Either you are a con artist or completely gullible. And your anecdotes are seriously unverifiable-go figure.

Wow, a bunch of “testimonials” all written in the same style and either in Spanish or broken English (in the way a Spanish speaker would use).

Exactly what I was thinking; plus they have the occasional ALL-CAPS, are signed in a similar manner, and are structured in the same manner: “Dr. Clark is great” followed by “you suck.” They are no doubt written by the same person, and are completely fabricated.

How about a blog written about all of the oncologists who have cut/burned and poisoned their victims – legally – long after it has been proven that NONE of those ‘therapies’ has EVER cured cancer. Is there any one of these individuals singled out or are they all doing the BEST they can do? Chemotherapy, in fact, even CAUSES cancer. How can you defend these practices, while bashing one person who spent her whole life researching alternatives and doing her best to try to implement them?

Perhaps Hulda’s biggest challenge was that it is very hard to erase the damage that has already been done through barbaric dentistry (mercury filled teeth and root canals leaving festering infections that get into the bloodstream and as well as other poisonings), pesticide laden foods and toxic household products which have already done much damage, and parasites, which ultimately infest these unhealthy bodies.

You, who believe a ‘quack’ has died, may as well be the same people who hung the ‘witches’ in Salem, or believed in slavery, etc. It is you people who are preventing the people who can actually think outside the box, from receiving proper funding to prevent and cure cancer using healthy methods. Hulda was one of these people and had she received the proper funding from the trillions of dollars raised for Cancer Research to be used to find different ways of poisoning and burning, she may have been able to do much more than she could with what she could make with her products. There is no doubt in my mind that although she wasn’t perfect, she was on the RIGHT path.

Use your brains people! Fighting cancer with chemicals and radiation is like fighting a ‘war for peace’. Healthy cells are destroyed, just as innocent victims are killed. How is this all working for you? I’m sure curious to know!

You must not get out much. We’ve heard on one of the other threads from several people who were cured of their lymphomas through chemo, radiation and surgery. But, since none of those treatments actually works, what happened to their cancers?

Get out much – lol. I’m far more intelligent than any of you, just by using common sense. Do you know what that is? If you have a mind of your own – you do. It takes ‘common sense’ to know that injecting any harsh chemicals into your body that destroy ALL cells, are very likely going to kill you too? Chemo’therapy’ is a carcinogen and what do carcinogens do? Why they cause cancer, of course. Common sense!

The people who have been ‘cured’ by those barbaric treatments are the ones who were lucky enough that some of their ‘healthy’ cells were able to overcome – just as some of the people in the ‘war for peace’ haven’t died, but have ‘just’ been wounded. How many of the people who’ve received these ‘therapies’ have gone on to live healthy lives, versus the number who’ve been killed by them? What are those stats? Even the richest people, the most recent celebrities who have succumbed to chemo and radiation, couldn’t survive those treatments, and they would have received the ‘best of the best’. Would you like to do a blog on the oncologists who led them astray? Are they ‘legal’ murderers? Yes – they’ve been given a license to do what they do – so there’s no need to even name them. Cancer may kill – but most people eventually die from the Chemo and Radiation. Point blank!

Ummm, OMG, wouldn’t “common sense” tell you that real evidence is more compelling than your “because I say so” argument? Argument by assertion really does not go very far. Do try harder to get that evidence, and come back with something more than “it is common sense.”

Speaking of “common sense” — how does an animal that lives only in a small part of the world be the cause of cancers?

Wow! I honestly and most sincerely hope that all of you who scoff at Hulda and all of her accomplishments actually come down with horrible diseases that no conventional medicine can help. Then I hope you actually put to use the tools she has given to the world and find that SHE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!!!
May you all live incredibly painful, difficult lives til you perish!

Aw – did someone lose the game and ‘upset’ the board? Sure looks that way. I hope I’m wrong and that ORCA would be able to take it, as well as dish it out.

If you all think Hulda’s was a quack – for all of you naysayers, here’s a little experiment we can do. Since Isopropyl alcohol feeds the fluke worm and should be avoided at all costs – as per Hulda – here we go…

Right now, every hospital, doctor’s office, etc. has containers of this alcohol based hand cleaner – everywhere – and they expect everyone to use it to prevent the spread of disease. Many contain Isopropyl. Doctors and medical staff use it all day long. Patients going in and out of these facilities do too. Well – if Hulda is correct about how it ‘feeds’ the flukeworm – we’re going to see the cancer rate skyrocket among health care professionals (and even the general public) tenfold in the years to come. Here’s your chance to see how much of a ‘quack’ you think Hulda was.

Is that what it would take for all of you to believe she may have been on to something?

@Hmmmm: Absolutely. If the rate of cancer skyrockets tenfold among health care professionals in the years to come, I will certainly think back to your comment, and consider that you might have been on to something.

But wait. Open-mindedness goes both ways. If the rate of cancer among health care professionals in the years to come remains stable, will you change your mind and consider the possibility that woo is hogwash and Hulda Clark was, in fact, a quack?

OMG, and other defenders of Hulda, you do amaze me with your confidence in Hulda’s delusions.

Here is an an exercise for you. Find me two or three patients from anywhere with well-documented active cancer that went away with Hulda’s treatment and that alone. Such cases just don’t exist, and there should be thousands. We won’t accept cases that she has diagnosed as having cancer with the Syncrometer, or pronounced cured by the same means, as was her common practice.

You should also realise that all her so-called “research” was done through her interpretation of noises from the Syncrometer. No one else has been able to get the Syncrometer to work reliably that way, and it defies all logic that it should. Thus, not one of her “discoveries” have been ever confirmed by other more direct means such as analytical chemistry or microscopy.

So her views were determined by her own imaginings, and in fact merely added a ridiculously unlikely level of detail to several prevailing themes in “alternative” cancer theory — there was nothing original about them.

It is a stark fact that her chosen liver fluke is just visible to the naked eye and would look like a mountain under the microscope, yet it is not seen in millions of examinations of tissues from cancer patients.

Alterntive medicine saves thousands of lives.
And I am one of them.
Parasites do exsist. The American people are dying everyday because of FDA and people like you who refuse to open their eyes to less expensive herbal healings. The only think Hulda Clark did wrong was use the word cure. Our govenment sure couldn’t lose the profit of americans dying in hositals.

Hulda Clark died of cancer on September 3, 2009 at her son’s house in
California.

I have a copy of her death certificate.

She had multiple melanoma with hypercalcemia and anemia.

Patrick Timothy Bolen and his entourage of cancer quacks and their
supporters can’t stand it, so they said that she died of something
else.

When I heard that she died of a spinal injury, I knew that she must
have had cancer of some kind. All it took was about $12.00 to obtain a
copy of her certificate from the San Diego County Clerk’s office.

Terry Polevoy, MD

P.S. Bolen can’t stand the truth and the victims of Hulda Clark’s lies
have suffered enough. Her pain is gone, but her victim’s pain
continues forever.

There may be a typo, but the result is the same.
Multiple myeloma is a malignant neoplasm of plasma cells, basically a type of lymphoma.
Multiple melanoma would be a term for multiple primary tumors of malignant melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer.
Hulda Clark appers to have died of cancer. I suspect that that “spinal injury” had to do with metastasis to the vertebrae, which could happen with either neoplasm.

Multiple Myeloma can present initially as a solitary plasmacytoma tumor in the spine, this tumor can obliterate vertebrae and cause enough pressure on the spinal cord to paralyze from the pressure point down. That she had spinal cord problems is not unreasonable. That she died of spinal cord injuries is not accurate.

So once again, we see people lying to cover up uncomfortable truths about a quack healer who died of cancer.

Most likely she was having kidney failure as hypercalcification started causing problems, was anemic, and had bone breaks as tumors ate away in various spots in her body as well as bone pain which is excruciating. I’m sure she did have paralysis and spinal cord damage. It can take a long time to kill or it can kill more quickly depending on age and health factors. It is more common in elderly african-american men, and in the elderly in general however diagnosis numbers are on the rise for younger patients as well. Causes are not entirely known, but genetic factors, environmental exposures to radiation and chemicals, fungal or viral infection, and possible links to HPV can all contribute.

Having just seen this development while following it from a distance fgor some time, and looking from the back of the theatre, let me just offer this evaluation of Hulda Clark: She was completely and utterly delusional, and probably an undiagnosed clinical schizophrenic. The unfortunate result is that her delusions have taken others nearly as delusional along with her for the ride…a ride I suspect most of them didn’t need.

The clinical definition of “schizophrenic” is that the sufferer truly believes and sees the world operate unlike it is in reality, part or all the time. Although they are not gibbering idiots, there is a definite disconnect with reality in some or many ways. In a Venn diagram, the two sets – their mind and reality – are only partially overlapping. And in Hulda’s case, the overlap was quite small. Her understanding of even basic physics was the invention of her delusional side. And freed from the restraints of common sense and silly stuff like gravity, she must have truly believed her bonkers theories and pronouncements to be good and right.

So do I have pity on her for dying of cancer? Not much. How can I forgive and pity anyone who has given so many others so much pain and death. Her family deserves the pity for losing a loved person, and I give it to them. However it would also be true to say that Hulda-the-personality lost touch with her true family some time ago – at the same time she started pushing her loopy cancer cures. Hulda-the-personality lost touch with reality and ethics and commons sense then too. The sets in the Venn diagram were drifting apart.

I suspect a modicum of her own self-promotion played a part in this as well. Certainly everyone craves recognition. But when you lose the understanding of how things work in real life, and start believing in the “Big Pharma” conspiracies and the religious rightness of your (unchecked) solutions to “big” problems and such like, you also lose understanding of how recognition is truly garnered. You start to make up your own rules…and your own justifications. Which Hulda did. She believed she was right, could do no wrong, was doing good, even while the reality firmly came down with different results. Convinced she was right, she convinced herself, and sadly many gullible others, that it must have been reality that was wrong when patients failed to recover. Even their deaths were no deterrent – the reason in Hulda’s mind was they did something wrong, not Hulda. In her mind, reality HAD to work like she wanted it to, not the other way round. SHE had to garner the recognition – it was only right because she had convinced herself it was so. The intersection of the sets was getting smaller and smaller…

So enter more conspiracy theories and even more delusions…the liver flukes, the crazy gadgets, the utter denial and towering rants against self-perceived enemies. If she had come to public notice only at this point, she would have been relegated to the the more loonier parts of Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner, and would have died alone with many cats. But she was also now in Mexico, where lax regulations allowed her to give voice and substance to her delusions. And that I do get angry with: A government too lax and corrupt to check and regulate what was obviously a pile of burro droppings, medically speaking. But I suspect since she was (mis)treating just the gringos then it was “OK” as long as the money came in. (Perhaps I’m being too hard on the Mexican government – India is far, FAR worse in this regard.)

Chances are high, when she got ill herself, Hulda denied her true illness to the end. Facts and reality had nothing to do with it. On the Venn diagram, the sets now had a null intersection. Final result: Hulda as good as killed herself, insane to the end. The big pity is she dragged people along with her and killed them in the process of her mental illness.

So here is my final message to Hulda: Goodbye, you will not be mourned, and may everyone realise you were indeed insane and relegate your medical treatments to the dustbin of history immediately. Forever.

The point you stupid mofo’s is that Polevoy, a supposed physician, has written all over the internet that Clark died of “multiple melanoma”. There is no such disease as “multiple melanoma”. There is “multiple myleoma”, of which Clark did not die.

Clark did not claim the cure for immortality. She claimed as does The Biomeme Project that most disease including cancer is caused by endo and exo toxins sloughed off by infection.

Zep@133 “…looking from the back of the theater, let me just offer this evaluation of Hulda Clark: she was completely and utterly delusional, and probably an undiagnosed clinical schizophrenic.”

Interesting point. I wonder if Hulda Clark may also have suffered from delusional parasitosis?

Delusional Parasitosis occurs when someone believes (incorrectly) that they are infested with parasites. The stories these folks tell are often beyond belief – these poor people quit their jobs, sell their cars, move out of their homes, and yet somehow the parasites always “find” them again and re-parasitize the new environment.

I have used a Hulda Clark Zapper for over 10 years, and I have to say it works. I’ve seen food poisoning go away in minutes, colds and flues gone by next day… Resonant Frequencies really kill germs folks… or at least they kill the germs in my family. If the folk at Quackwatch are against it, I’m betting it’s because it works. Quackwatch are just a bunch of fellas that work for Big Pharma anyway… I say find out for yourself.

The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Also, exactly how did you know you had food poisoning? Was there bloody diarrhea? How did you know you had influenza? Were you knocked on your back for over a week with a high fever? (what most people think is a flu is just a random virus)

I wish our setup of Movable Type had a setting that would let me automatically shut down comments on posts after, say, 90 days, so that these drive-by trolls don’t hit several month-old posts, to the annoyance of all.